News, Community, and Historical Thinking

What We’re Reading: November 4, 2010 Edition

We begin this week by linking to what others are looking forward to at this year’s 125th Annual Meeting: Medieval history sessions, digital history sessions, and the Cliopatria awards. Also, if you’re on the job market, The Chronicle has an article on reducing stress. Celebrate Native American Heritage Month with two articles detailing events, more resources, and recognizing a number of Native American women. We also link to three National Archives related pieces: on possible theft by an employee, a new report on changes, and a video on Civil War documents. Read three other Civil War related links, which note the upcoming sesquicentennial and some remaining myths. Even though Halloween is over, the Backstory podcast tackles some spooky stuff, we see some ghostly images in daguerreotypes, and Jane Austen had some frightening grammar. Finally, things get a bit political in two articles on the misuse of history in politics.

Native American Heritage Month
Loriene Roy, a professor at The University of Texas, Austin and advisory editor for The American Indian Experience, writes about how to “celebrate and commemorate” Native American Heritage Month through events, resources, and education.

In Richmond, a Civil War expert seeks to emancipate history’s narrative
Historian and University of Richmond President Edward Ayers talks to The Washington Post about rethinking “what the [Civil War] war is about, and what we’ve being doing in Richmond is instead of talking of one sesquicentennial, one anniversary, it’s really two: One’s the Civil War, and the other’s Emancipation."

The myth of the black Confederates
Historian Bruce Levine tries to dispel the myth that thousands of “Southern blacks — both free and enslaved — served voluntarily, loyally, consistently and as fully fledged combatants in the South.” His article stems from the recent controversy about a 4th grade Virginia textbook, which AHA Executive Director Jim Grossman addressed in his blog post “Historical Malpractice and the Writing of Textbooks.”

American Spirit: A History of the Supernatural
In time for Halloween (though we’re linking to it after the fact) the American History Guys present a podcast on “ghosts, spirits and witches throughout our nation’s history.” They also offer a number of links to more online resources.

Comment

Thank you for linking to Dr. Loriene Roy’s guest entry on Native American Heritage Month and what you can do in your community to celebrate it! We will be posting an entry related to Native American Heritage each week in November. Be sure to check back for more great information. Thanks again!